The Fed Proposes Changes to the Money Market to Prevent Bank Runs

When investors decide to close out their riskier positions and move into “cash”, they don’t actually go to the bank and get a stack of twenties. Most just sell their stocks and let their broker sweep the proceeds into a money market fund which, they assume, is the same thing as cash because it holds high-quality short-term commercial paper that almost never defaults.

That pleasant assumption breaks down as soon as you look at a typical money market fund’s holdings and see that it owns, among other disturbing things, a lot of European bank debt.